Page:Complete Works of Count Tolstoy - 03.djvu/22

6 these expressions were peculiarly unfinished: upon his face there constantly remained one prevailing expression of affright and haste. His lean, venous neck was wrapped in a green woollen scarf, which was concealed under his fur coat. His fur coat was worn, short, with a dogskin collar and false pockets. His trousers were checkered and of an ash-gray hue, and his boots had short, unblacked soldier boot-legs.

"Please do not trouble yourself," I said to him, when, looking timidly at me, he again doffed his cap.

He bowed to me with an expression of gratitude, put on his cap, and, fetching from his pocket a dirty chintz pouch with a cord, began to roll a cigarette for himself.

I had but lately been a yunker, an old yunker, incapable of still being good-naturedly obliging to my younger comrades, and a yunker without means; therefore, knowing well the whole moral burden of this situation for a grown-up and egotistical man, I sympathized with all the men who were in this situation, and tried to explain to myself the character, degree, and direction of their mental capacity, in order to judge from those considerations the degree of their moral suffering. This yunker, or reduced officer, by his restless look and by the intentional and constant change of expression, which I had noticed in him, appeared to me to be a very clever and extremely egotistical, and, therefore, a very pitiable, man.

Staff-Captain Sh proposed to us to play another game of skittles, the penalty for the losing party to be, in addition to the ride on the back, several bottles of red wine, rum, sugar, cinnamon, and cloves for mulled wine, which during this winter, on account of the frost, was very popular in our detachment. Guskantini, as Sh again called him, was also invited to take part in the game; but, before beginning to play, he, obviously struggling between the pleasure which this invitation afforded him